


Of (Lake) Monsters and Men

by luckjustkissedyouhello



Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [7]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood Loss, Boats and Ships, Concussions, Gen, Gun Violence, Held at Gunpoint, In the Hands of the Enemy, Rescue, Vomiting, frickard is a bastard, sammy stevens whump, shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckjustkissedyouhello/pseuds/luckjustkissedyouhello
Summary: He hates that fucking Greg Fucking Frickard has him begging for his life. For Ben’s life.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens
Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946800
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Of (Lake) Monsters and Men

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings in the end notes.
> 
> for the Whumptober prompts: in the hands of the enemy, held at gunpoint, rescue, blood loss, & shot

The boat bobs gently on the lake. Sammy thinks he might throw up and it has nothing to do with the motion of the boat and everything to do with the broken man pointing a gun, blood already soaking down Ben’s face and into the front of his hoodie from when fucking Frickard smashed the gun into Ben’s face. Sammy is pretty sure Ben's nose is broken and there isn’t a goddamned thing he can do about it. The fact that his mouth got Ben hurt is accountable for most of the nausea that is coursing through him, but there’s a good deal of fear for his life and, more importantly, Ben’s life making him sick as well. 

“You don’t have to do this, Greg,” Sammy says, fear clear in his voice. He hates that fucking Greg Fucking Frickard has him begging for his life. For Ben’s life. 

He doesn’t think it’ll work. He’s been saying it since they exited the station to find Greg waiting. Waiting with a gun and the eviction notice that was served on the Froggery. He made them get in his car, telling Sammy to get up front to drive, and smashed the gun into Ben's face when Sammy argued about Ben getting in the backseat with Greg. 

Sammy stopped arguing after that. Ben too - he’s not said a word after he cursed about his broken nose. He just looks angry and scared. Sammy knows exactly how he feels. So neither of them protested when Frickard made them get on a docked boat on the lake. Sammy's pretty sure it’s the pontoon boat Herschel got for Cecil. But thinking about that, about Cecil just makes Sammy sadder so he tries not to. Greg had already hotwired the damn thing, had it waiting for them when they got to the dock a bit after dawn. He made Sammy drive them to the middle of the large lake. This is all planned out, Sammy is realizing. He had to premeditatively go and hotwire the boat before coming to the station. The bastard has had hours to think about what he’s about to do, and still seems committed to their murder. Sammy’s not sure he can talk their way out of this. 

Sammy’s hatred soars as the bastard answers: “No, I don’t have to, Shotgun. But I want to.” Greg is at his most deranged sounding, like a man on the edge of a really big cliff. Or, you know, a double murder. At least he’s pointing the gun at Sammy now and not Ben. That’s...something. “You two deserve to die for what you have done to me and Grannie. For poisoning Emily and the town against me. You’ve ruined my life!”

Sammy wants to scream: you ruined your own life. You gaslit Emily. The town just woke up to your bullshit criminal ass and the fact that fucking frogs aren’t food. But none of that seems like the smart thing to say when there’s a gun pointed at his chest. Sammy may be a coward, a weak excuse for a man, but he can’t blame himself for keeping those words to himself, in this case. It’s not just his life on the line here. Ben could die too. Sammy can’t risk that. “You’ll go to jail.” It’s a thin argument. But it’s all Sammy’s got. “They’ll figure it out you did it. We go missing the same day you got served an eviction notice? Troy’s not a goddamn idiot. He’s gonna be on your ass in hours, not days.”

“It takes forever for a body to show up in this lake - it’s deep. You two assholes have enemies all over this town! The longer you’re missing the better for me! I’ll - I’ll weigh you down!” He’s desperate too, clinging to the idea of killing them, clearly he hadn't thought past this point of getting them on to the lake, and hadn’t thought of the consequences of fucking murdering them. _Perfect_. A desperate, broken, idiot of a man is pointing a gun at his best friend. 

Ben scoffs. Which is not an ideal sound to make when a man is pointing a gun at you. Or when you have a broken nose. He raises his hand up to touch the bridge of his nose, wincing. Sammy gets another stab of guilt in his chest. He's always known he’d die guilt-ridden and afraid. He just had hopes that he wouldn’t take anyone else with him. 

“With what weights, genius?” Ben snaps after he drops his hand back down. 

Frickard makes a frustrated sound and steps toward Ben. He raises the gun to hit him and Sammy can’t watch Ben get hit again.

Sammy steps towards Frickard going low to get under his arm holding the gun so it doesn’t get trapped between them (Sammy’s seen enough movies to know that probably wouldn’t end well for him). Frickard is quicker than Sammy hoped and pivots away from Ben, swinging the gun down in a sharp punishing arc, and smashes Sammy in the temple with it.

Sammy hits the deck, head spinning. He lays there for a moment, trying to get his bearings.

“You bastard!” Ben screams at Frickard.

Sammy groans as he pushes himself to his hands and knees. He has to rest a moment, get his equilibrium back. Blood runs along with his temple and drips onto the boat deck. “Hersch’s gonna be mad,” Sammy says, dazed, watching as a second drop of blood joins the first. “Bleedin’ on his boat.”

Frickard kicks him in the ribs and Sammy drops down, probably gets more blood all over Hersch’s boat. “Stop bleeding on the boat! You’re leaving evidence!” He whine-screams and kicks Sammy again before Sammy can even get to his knees again. Sammy feels one of his ribs give under Frickard’s foot. His next breath hurts like fuck to draw in. 

Ben begs Greg to stop. Sammy gets his knees under him again. It feels like he’s on a carousel, like the boat is spinning in slow circles. A rough wave rocks the boat. The combination of the up and down motion on top of the rotation (which Sammy thinks might be all in his head) is too much. Sammy loses the merger contents of his stomach, unable to hold it in. It _hurts_ like fuck to puke, he thinks he might have a busted rib, and he lets out a wheezy sound of pain, which would be a lot less embarrassing if it wasn’t goddamn Greg fucking Frickard kicking his ass right now. 

“That’s just more evidence!” Frickard shrieks in a whine. 

Sammy laughs hysterically, not even sure why he’s laughing, just that the tone Frickard is using is hilarious to his obviously concussed brain. He gets kicked again but he doesn’t go down. A second wave rocks the boat, harsher than the first. Sammy groans and squeezes his eyes shut at the motion.

“Get him up.” Frickard tells Ben, apparently finally realizing that kicking Sammy isn’t going to get him to stop leaving biological evidence all over the boat. 

“Sammy,” Ben says, voice tight with worry, and wraps a hand under his arm to pull him up, the other bracing his back. 

Sammy tries to wave the concern off, to show Ben he’s fine. Except he has trouble getting his feet under him. The boat is rocking hard now, constant violent waves hitting them every few seconds from behind his and Ben’s back, and tipping them forward towards Greg. Sammy staggers and almost goes tumbling into the bastard. Ben keeps a hold of him with both hands. Sammy thinks he’s going to die and Ben is going to die with him and he failed at the one shot he had at saving Ben. Some Protector he is. Greg fucking Frickard just kicked his ass. Ben’s gonna die because Sammy’s too weak to protect him.

He looks around desperately for someone to help them. But they’re in the middle of Lake Hachenhaw. There are no other people around to save them. Sammy wonders if he can throw Ben off the boat before Frickard can shoot Ben. If he’s lucky the klutzy side of Frickard will win out and he’ll miss and maybe Sammy can try a second time to overpower him. At least long enough for Ben to get a safer distance away from the madman with a gun. The man sure as hell hasn’t handled a gun before. His long distance aim is probably awful. Of course. They’re pretty far out in the lake. Sammys not even sure how good of a swimmer Ben is - is it better for him to possibly drown in the lake or get shot?

And then, as he’s looking behind him and Ben, Sammy sees why they’re getting rocked by waves. What he sees doesn’t quite make sense in his brain, thinks it wouldn’t even if he wasn’t probably concussed. A large….head? Is swimming at them. It’s very close. Less than ten feet away.

“Ben, wha—“ Sammy starts to ask.

Two things happen almost at once. The first is the head ducks under the surface and flips the pontoon boat. The second is the gun goes off.

They don’t get hurt by the boat landing on them - Sammy will be shocked by that later. It’s a thought he doesn’t have at the moment. At the moment he doesn’t really have any thoughts because they get flung into the air by the force of whatever the fuck that was hitting the boat almost exactly under their feet. 

Sammy hits the water face first, hard. There’s a new bright pain in his left leg. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the force he hit the water with is driving him under and he very much doesn’t want to keep going deeper. 

It’s instinct that has him twisting his body up towards the surface as soon as he stops going down. Kicking for the surface that simmers above his head is agony, his leg hurts. His head hurts so bad it’s hard to stay conscious. The surface seems so far away. 

He’s going to die. He’s not going to make it, Frickard killed him after all —

—a very large black shape is suddenly right over him, backlit by the sun on the lake’s surface. A mouth closes around his arm. Sammy barely has the awareness to hold his mouth closed and not scream. By the time he realizes that it is helping him get to the surface, not biting him to hurt (eat) him, there's not even any pain from the bite, his head is breaking out of the water. 

He’s released from the creature's mouth and has just enough wear with all to kick the one leg that isn’t shooting pain down it and hurts too much to really use, and move his arms to tread water. His head is in utter agony. As he’s bobbing in the water, choking out what feels like half the lake even as he’s trying to gasp in breaths, (and fuck his injured ribs really don’t like all that) he starts to look around for Ben. 

His first shout of Ben’s name is weak and lost to another choking fit. Water splashes into his mouth. He starts sinking down, but a hand grabs his flannel by the back, and he flinches, remembering Frickard for the first time, turns to see it’s Ben. Ben who’s bloody and as soaked as he is, but breathing. Ben didn’t get shot, Sammy thinks? He looks okay. But Sammy heard the gun go off.

Sammy could cry in relief, seeing Ben, seeing him apparently no more hurt than when they went in the water. And then that huge fucking head pops up in the water again, right next to him. 

Sammy screams, a wordless cry of fear. Ben, however, yells “Kingsie?” 

Sammy looks away from the fucking lake monster to look at Ben. Ben lets out a giggle that’s definitely on the hysterical side. “Don’t say she doesn’t exist, Sammy. She's right in front of us.”

Sammy is startled by, again, a fucking lake monster, coming closer. Her head is about as big as Sammy’s torso. She’s _huge_. She bumps her nose - snout? - against his chest gently. Kind of like a (very) oversized dog would to get attention. Ben’s free hand, the one not clinging to Sammy, reaches up to pet her head briefly before dropping back into the water to keep treading.

‘ _I’m dead and this is a bizarre, vivid end of life hallucination_ ’ Sammy thinks but reaches out an unsteady hand to pet the fucking lake monster. 

“Thanks, girl,” Sammy says, wondering why a hallucination would feel so real, her skin feels like a stingray’s under his palm, like the ones he pet some long ago day at an aquarium with Jack. He certainly hurts like this is all real. 

Kingsie ducks her snout under Sammy’s arm, kind of looping his arm over it. Sammy turns to look at Ben. 

“Is...is she?” he asks, unable to finish the question, to ask Ben if a lake monster is telling him to ride her. His life is too fucking weird as it is without saying _that_ out loud. He has a head injury after all. Maybe he’s imagining this.

“Think so?” Ben answers, looking equally confused and uncertain. It’s oddly comforting to see Ben also thinking the same thing, but totally thrown by the reality they’re currently in. 

That’s when fucking Frickard yells: “Help! I can’t swim!” 

Sammy turns to look. Frickard’s clinging to the overturned pontoon boat with both hands. He looks terrified. _Good._

The massive fucking lake monster raises her head up and screams. It’s the only word Sammy can come up with for the sound she makes: it’s a bellowing shriek of a scream. A shrieking scream that makes a fresh wave of pain slice through his head. It makes Sammy’s chest do that bass drum vibrating thing which is not fun when you’re so keyed up from almost being murdered and then almost drowning you think you might have a heart attack. Or a fucking head injury. 

Sammy cries out in pain. He’d sink if it wasn’t for Ben holding him up. 

When she’s done screaming, Frickard shouts: “I’ll stay here.” Like the coward he is. 

“Sammy. There’s a lot of blood in the water,” Ben says. 

“My head’s bleeding,” he says, then he looks down. Oh. _Oh fuck_. That is a lot of blood. 

“The gun went off. Did he shoot her?” Ben tries to look over Kingsie. As if she’s not goddamned massive and under the dark water, only her head and neck sticking out. 

Sammy frowns. The gun went off. His leg hurts, pain is radiating out from his thigh. There’s blood in the water all around them. _Oh_.

Ben must see it on his face. “Are you fucking shot!?” He screams. 

“I—maybe? My leg hurts. A lot.”

“Jack in the box Jesus,” Ben mumbles. Louder, he says: “When were you going to mention that, Sammy!? Or were you just gonna wait until you passed out from fucking blood loss!”

“I’ve been a little preoccupied! I almost drowned and my fucking head feels like it’s exploding!” Oh. Oh yelling does not feel good. Sammy closes his eyes against the pain ripping through his skull, his torso from his yelling, as if that’ll do anything.

When he opens his eyes again, Ben is watching him with a worried look. “I’m sorry—“

“—You don’t have to—“ Sammy interrupts, he’s not sure he can handle Ben feeling guilty right now. It might be the thing that breaks his fraying composure. 

“—I do. But...Let’s just table this. We need to get help.” Sammy’s face must say it all. They’re in the middle of a goddamned lake. “I _know_.” He huffs, winces - he must’ve forgotten his broken nose, _again_. “I mean...Should we see if she’ll let us hold onto her?” 

Sammy thinks he might be imagining it, but Kingsie seems to nod at Ben’s suggestion. Ben’s eyes widen, and Sammy thinks maybe that’s not too far from reality. In the very least, he didn’t hallucinate the reaction. 

“Fuck it, why not?” Sammy responds. Why not try and ride a goddamn lake monster to safety? The same lake monster that just saved his life, twice. Sammy’s dealt with a lot of weird shit since he moved to King Falls, but this is going to the top of the list of ‘Shit Sammy Stevens Never Thought He’d Experience.’ 

Ben laughs. Then he makes that ‘I’m thinking very hard’ face he does. Sammy’s glad to see it. He’s not in any shape to be doing the thinking. As evidenced by the fact that he’s grateful to see that look from Ben. 

Kingsie is smooth, she doesn’t have any fins sticking out of her back that they can hold onto. Sammy can’t figure out how they can ride her.

“I think...let me get on her other side? We can hold onto each other from either side?” 

Sammy thinks that might work. Her body is twice as wide as her head and neither of them can fully wrap their arms around her but they might reach each other. He gives a small nod - and regrets the movement almost immediately. The ache in his head seems to be getting worse. It’s almost as bad as his leg.

“You okay if I let you go?”

Sammy gives the same short nod. “Yeah,” he says, unsure if he will be. 

Ben seems nervous but he lets go of Sammy and swims around Kingsie. She makes a happy cat thrill kind of sound - times a thousand. Sammy can’t hide his groan of pain. Ben reaches across her massive back and takes hold of Sammy’s outstretched arm, Sammy holds onto him. A moment later, Ben stretches his other arm around her neck. Sammy follows suit and takes hold of Ben’s arm. They’re...they’re fucking hugging a lake monster. 

As soon as they have their arms around her, she makes another one of those happy cat on uber steroids thrilling sounds and starts to swim. She keeps them easily above the surface of the water. He can’t see past her head to see, but he thinks she’s taking them towards the Bait Shop. They are being carried to safety by a fucking lake monster. Sammy decides that if this isn’t a dying hallucination then his life is even weirder than he thought it was - which is saying a lot for someone about to face off against _shadows_ and has a best friend that shot down a UFO. 

Her neck is pretty high out of the water, steady and hardly moving. He thinks she swims by her moving her tail back and forth like a really fucking big iguana, but he can’t see under the water to tell. Sammy rests his head against her neck- he’s having trouble keeping his head up. He thinks he might be losing a bit too much blood. Sammy’s eyes close on their own, sure that Ben will keep hold of him if he just rests his eyes. Ben is calling his name, but Sammy can’t keep his eyes open.

The rest of their rescue only happens in pieces to Sammy. He’ll later have to ask Ben to fill in the huge gaps in time and information. He’ll remember:

Ron in a boat, pulling him and then Ben off of Kingsie and aboard. Grumbling about how much they weigh and gunshots. Sammy fades in and out as Ron and Ben talk, and then Ron’s voice a deep rumble, apologizing as he presses against either side of Sammy’s thigh, Ben holding him steady as he tries, weakly, to pull away from this new source of pain. Sammy screams, the sound cut off as everything fades out again.

He opens his eyes and Ben is leaning over him, looking terrified. Sammy tries to tell him it’ll be okay - he’s not sure why Ben looks so scared, but he wants to offer comfort all the same - but the boat - they’re on a boat? - jerks under his head and his temple bounces off the deck and it sets off an explosion of pain through his head and he’s out before he can even say a word.

Someone is picking him up and Sammy struggles, he doesn’t know what’s going on and everything hurts, why is he being lifted and why does everything hurt, but he’s too weak to put up much of a fight. Then Ben’s there and Ben doesn’t look so good - he’s pale and there’s blood on his face from his nose. And he's been crying. Sammy wants to ask Ben if he’s alright, but talking...it’s too hard, he can’t get his mouth to move right to ask. Sammy’s head is screaming at him, pain radiating out from his temple. Everything going on around him is so hard to understand. His leg hurts. Breathing hurts. _Everything_ hurts and Sammy’s having trouble remembering why. He must make some kind of pained, confused sound, because Ben says: “It’s okay, Sammy.” 

He’s set down on something soft, and he sees Ron, realizes Ron was carrying him. And then his view of Ron and Ben is cut off by new people, people leaning into his field of vision and talking so quick and Sammy can hardly follow what's going on and he can’t remember why he’s in so much fucking pain and it’s terrifying. Then someone's touching is leg and it’s too much, too much pain, too much fear. Sammy passes out again.

Sammy wakes, every inch of him feels slow and heavy. Sammy lays there with his eyes closed, trying to figure out what’s happened, why there’s a lingering feeling of fear wrapping around his heart. That warm heavy feeling in his limbs is probably thanks to a pain med (he can feel pain in that distant, ‘this should be hurting but it’s not’ kinda way) and it’s making it so damn hard to think. He’s not sure, at first, why he’s just grateful to be warm and dry until he remembers: the boat. Frickard. _Ben_. 

It’s a struggle to open his eyes, but when he does, he’s rewarded instantly for his effort. Ben’s asleep in a hospital bed only a few feet from him, curled up on his side, Emily wrapped around him from behind him on the bed. It’s adorable, and one of the most comforting things Sammy’s ever seen. Ben’s okay. Relief floods through Sammy so quickly he feels dizzy. 

A snore to his left makes Sammy turn his head in the direction. Lily is asleep in the chair beside his bed, her head tipped back. As he watches her, she snorts in her sleep and rolls her head on her neck so that her head is tipped forward, chin almost touching her chest. It can’t be any better for her neck. Sammy thinks about calling her name, waking her up. But there’s moonlight coming in through the blinds, all the lights are turned down low, Sammy gets the feeling that it’s quite late at night. He doesn’t have the heart to wake her. 

Sammy looks back to Ben, reminding himself that the other man is okay. Ben is sleeping safe in Emily’s arms. Another snore from Lily reminds Sammy that she’s there too, willing to spend all night in an uncomfortable chair to keep watch over him, to be there for him, for Ben.

Sammy closes his eyes, letting the feeling of being warm and safe and protected, _loved_ wash over him as he drifts back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> cw: peril, gun violence, vomit, & near-drowning


End file.
